The Plastic People of the Universe is a Czech band who were instrumental (haha) in the eventual end of one-party communist rule in their country. Their constant persecution and arrests for just wanting to play music inspired people like Vaclev Havel to form Charter 77, an informal group of free thinkers opposed to the human and civil rights violations of the government. The work of activists like those in Charter 77 finally brought about the Velvet Revolution in 1989, which resulted in the conversion of Czechoslovakia to a parliamentary republic.
Their best known album, to Westerners anyway, is 1974's Egon Bondy's Happy Hearts Club Banned, a parody of that other famous album. Egon Bondy was a Czech poet and philosopher, and a main character in the Prague Underground. Most of the songs on the album are his poems set to music.
Toxica is a ramshackle psychedelic mess. A rough translation of its lyrics:
I am the victim of allegiance, toxicomaniacal. It could be sad but it's rather funny. I drink beer and take pills, but still can't fall asleep. Morning I'll return some empty bottles. Julia will help me with that.
The music opens with dual violin and saxophone, joined by slithering wah wah electric guitar. At 0:46 a guitar tiptoes about, setting off panicked violin and saxophone squawks. At 1:20 the drums come in and the music relaxes into the groove as the guitar takes a wild noisy wah wah ride up and down the fretboard for almost two minutes. At 3:15 a messed up theremin enters the mix, and why not? Everything is everything.
No comments:
Post a Comment